SUMMARY
The effectiveness of patching therapy for amblyopia was analysed according to visual acuity improvement. total and partial cure and recurrence. Thirty-one patients with amblyopia were selected. They had patching therapy and were submitted to maintenance occlusion (programmed withdraw). The final visual result was the visual acuity score reached after 6 months from the end of the maintenance occlusion. The patients were divided in 3 groups according to the amblyopia severity. The results found showed improvement in 93% of the patients, total cure (equal vision OU) in 38% and partial cure (one fine difference) in 61%. The amblyopia recurrence was 6%. These percentages suggest that patching therapy is an effective therapeutic tool considering partial cure criterion and the amblyopia recurrence was small in those patients who had maintenance occlusion.